Gas Grenades in 8-man squads

Post Reply
Psieye
Posts: 829
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:27 am

Gas Grenades in 8-man squads

Post by Psieye »

The Gas Grenade does not have much of a reputation. The poison is quite likely to wear off at the start of the first enemy turn and it's not exactly about dealing damage anyway. Nor does it stop special abilities and Sneks are immune. This means it's inferior to a basic flashbang in fast-moving 5-man GOps.

In stationary or retreating 8-man missions however, it has potential. I still regard it as a luxury that I don't need (unlike Mindshield and Hazmat). For the record, I find Incendiaries of 1.5 to be slightly more desirable than Gas Grenades but they serve very different needs. The key feature of the Gas Grenade is the puddle, which is guaranteed to inflict poison if a non-immune target walks into it. The chance to recover from poison only applies at the start of an enemy turn. Therefore if an enemy walks into the puddle, the Aim debuff is guaranteed to be relevant on the shot it takes that turn. In effect, the Gas Grenade is a lesser flashbang you can throw ahead of time. It becomes multi-turn area denial if all your units visible from that angle have amazing Def (smoke helps a lot). The rainbow pod (with Rocketeer sniped away) seems particularly vulnerable to being gassed.

How you follow-up afterwards further affects the Gas Grenade's value. So you've tricked the AI into walking into the puddle and taking a useless shot. If cover is sparse (i.e. the puddle was on the only good cover in walkable distance), what happens if you Roust or Flush (from the AWC I hope)? The enemy still has the Mob nerf from poison so it can't move back as far. Heck, you could bluff the AI into moving through the puddle again by flanking it (don't do this against Mutons): the flanker doesn't need ammo in their gun and may as well hunker, the AI will still react to seeing a flank.

Still, this does seem a lot of fiddle work for not-that-great a value. Landing an Incendiary on a Rocketeer feels much more valuable than denying a corridor/alley with a Gas Grenade. I think the right doctrine for Gas Grenades would be one where all the Specs take Air Drop and you pump out Sapper/HO grenadiers for late joiners. Then that one Cpl grenadier in a squad of SSgt+ members is pulling his weight, especially with an Adv Grenade Launcher so they can do their job while out of sight.
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
1st
2nd
3rd
Phaseless
Posts: 225
Joined: Wed Aug 30, 2017 9:06 am

Re: Gas Grenades in 8-man squads

Post by Phaseless »

Funny, I used a gas grenade only once and it was in a retreat Scenario, albeit a completely unplanned one.
It actually helped a lot in that Situation because of the mobility reduction. Was a dark vip Mission where I KOed the VIP and was running from the two guarding pods + RNF. I gassed the area in front of the Building where most of the enemies were.

My retreat was only successful because of that poison, since I had an especially slow moving psi soldier with me as well.
So that Mission, the gas grenade saved my hide.
I think you can spare a Slot for one on Mission where you expect a messy retreat. Otherwise, another Plasma, flash or incendiary might be more valuable.
Root
Posts: 8
Joined: Sun Sep 24, 2017 2:12 pm

Re: Gas Grenades in 8-man squads

Post by Root »

Can confirm rainbow squad + gas + run away is funny as hell.
Kamikaze Samurai
Posts: 50
Joined: Tue Oct 24, 2017 10:31 pm

Re: Gas Grenades in 8-man squads

Post by Kamikaze Samurai »

I've played around a bit with my World War I squad that is based on the combined use of machineguns and poison gas.

The conclusion is that gas grenades need to be combined with salvo.

That way you can poison them and run away.
Post Reply